newsGeoffrey Nyarota (1951-2025) – Death of a Zimbabwean media giant who inspired a generation of journalists
Geoffrey Nyarota at the time he took on ruling party big wigs and exposed massive corruption at the heart of the new Zimbabwe
Zimbabweans mourn the death of Geoffrey Nyarota who died on March 22 after a long fight with cancer. He leaves behind a legacy of investigative journalism that has inspired generations of young reporters. TREVOR GRUNDY reports –
GEOFFREY NYAROTA was born in Mutare, Eastern Rhodesia in 1951, the talented son of parents who cared deeply about the Christian religion and the education of their children.
After university, he trained as a teacher before turning to journalism.
The young Nyarota burst onto the world scene in the late 1980s when he was editor of the state-owned Bulawayo Chronicle.
The paper had a reputation for aggressive investigative reporting.
But no-one in Zimbabwe expected the editor of a state-run newspaper to take on key members of the ruling party, Zanu (PF).
Nyarota and the deputy editor Davion Maruziva reported that ministers and officials from Zanu (PF) had been given access to foreign cars at an assembly plant at a Harare suburb.
In some cases, cars were brought wholesale by ministers, friends and relatives of ministers and a new breed of black businessmen – officials who then re-sold them making profits of anything between 200-400 percent.
The Bulawayo Chronicle published documents showing number plates, the names of those who bought cheap and sold dear.
The scandal had just one explosive name – Willowgate.
A crocodile-tear-shedding Mugabe appointed a three-man panel- the Sandura Commission – to investigate.
Five of Mugabe’s most “squeaky-socialist-clean” cabinet ministers resigned.
One of them, Maurice Nyagumbo, committed suicide.
Mugabe was untouched by scandal.
Geoffrey Nyarota at the Royal Commonwealth Society (RCS) in 2007 during the UK launch of his book “Against the Grain.” (Picture: Trevor Grundy)
As a reward for exposing those who were responsible for disgracing the ideal of socialist integrity, Mugabe sacked Nyarota and Maruziva.
Nyarota spent years in exile, teaching journalism in South Africa and later on in the UK and USA
But he could stay away from home for long. In 1999 he co-founded The Daily News with another journalist, Wilf Mbanga.
During his editorship of The Daily News, Nyarota was arrested six times.
In April 2000, a bomb was thrown into the paper’s offices.
The following year the paper’s plant was bombed again and in December 2002, Nyarota resigned as editor avoiding being fired by new owners more friendly with Mugabe and the spivs who ran (and still run) the ruling party.
Geoff Nyarota was not without his critics who said that when he was the editor of The Chronicle in Bulawayo he ignored atrocities committed by members of the North Korean-trained Fifth Brigade who were responsible for the death of anything from 20,000 to 50,000 men, women and children in Matabeleland during a vile campaign organised by Robert Mugabe and Emmerson Mnangagwa known as Gukuruhundi.
Nyarota in 2002 had egg all over his face when he authorised the publication in the Daily News of a story which claimed that a women had been beheaded by Zanu (PF) youths at a village close to the Midlands town of Karoi.
He apologised to Zanu (PF) and admitted in his book Against the Grain that its publication was the biggest mistake he ever made as an editor.
In 2003, Geoff Nyarota and his family left Zimbabwe for South Africa and later the USA.
There, he was awarded a fellowship at the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University.
In 2006 his first book “Against the Grain” was published in South Africa. Many said it was a worthwhile book but that it was written by and editor who needed editing.
In his 2006 book ‘Against the Grain’ Geoff Nyarota said that two of the founder member of the Zimbabwe African National Union (ZANU) in August 1963 were James Chikerema (left) and George Nyandoro. Truth is, both men stuck loyally to Joshua Nkomo and for a long time Chikerema was Vice-President of Nkomo’s organisation, the Zimbabwe African People’s Union (ZAPU). Picture: Trevor Grundy
The journalist Andrew Meldrum said when he heard about the death of his friend and colleague – “Against daunting odds, Geoff bravely carved out a distinguished career from exposing corruption in Zimbabwe in 1988 to found and leading The Daily News and maintaining his fiercely independent voice in exile and then back in Zimbabwe.”
In short, Geoffrey Nyarota, who went down many times, never took the full count.
He got up, did a rope a dope, managed an impressive Ali Shuffle, tripped over his feet more than once and then counter-punched.
For that reason alone, his legend will never die.